Our New Puppy Sherwood

by  HogWild

Mrs. Potato-Head loves animals. She absolutely adores them. If she wasn’t becoming a doctor, she says she’d want to be a Veterinarian. Either that or the girl at the Zoo who teaches the monkeys not to fling their primate poop. 

Now I’m not an animal person. I mean, sure I like lookin’ at ‘em on TV and stuff. Like killer crocodiles who surface out of the swamp to devour a sleeping lion or something. That’s cool. Or even a cute little koala bear who suddenly attacks squirrel for giving it herpes. But I wasn’t really raised with animals in my home. I was born and raised in an apartment in the Bronx. We had our share of smiling rodents, but I wouldn’t call them PETS. More like roommates. They helped pay the rent and all, but they were dirty and ran numbers for horse racing. We weren’t allowed to have dogs and this was no place to raise a cat. So my brother decided to get a hamster. We fed it used toilet paper rolls. It was ugly. Then it got loose. We never saw it again. Mainly because he was taken hostage by a gang of thug roaches and we didn’t pay the ransom.

Co-op City, where I grew up. I lived in a building just like that one. Floor 8 of 33. Co-op was approximately 40% black, 40% Puerto Rican, 20% old Jewish ladies. If I didn't go away for College, I'd grow up to be one of those old Jewish ladies.

So while in College, I bowed to Mrs. P’s wishes to get a domesticated animal. I couldn’t see the point being that in my experience, house animals only served to spread disease and trails of turd. We got a bird. One stupid bird. Danny. Mrs. P couldn’t resist. He was in his cage at the pet store with like 6 other finches. He was being picked on--- literally. The other birds had picked his feathers and pecked at his head so much they had to equip him with a little crash helmet. And his beak was being held on by a rubberband. A pathetic sight for sure. So they gave her this Danny bird for free, if she agreed to buy the 36 unit cage. What a deal.

As time passed, I KNEW Mrs. P’s appetite for cuddly stupid animals would not be satiated by our tiny severely autistic bird. So she, without MY PERMISSION, got ANOTHER finch! Now, at least Danny is kinda cute in a “I feel bad that he has to endure the consistent pain of living” way. But Dolly, this new bird, was just ugly. She looks like a Turd with Wings. If my doody could fly, it would be Dolly. Anyhoo, this kept Mrs. P happy for awhile. But I knew the beast within could not be satisfied. 

So two weeks ago, Mrs. P starts getting puppy fever. She’s all like, “I want a dog.” And I’m all like, “HEEEEEEEEELL NO!” “Oh, it will be fun”, she says. “It will be a bonding experience. A dog will give you companionship.” Oh thanks. Now I have no friends, huh? I need some random MAMMAL to provide camaraderie because I am so hideous of a person that no HUMAN would dare interact with me. What kind of bullTish is that? I don’t need a stupid dog!

But then I made the biggest mistake a nub can make. I allowed myself to be suckered into going to the pet store with my bim. If I ever had one shot at turning back the clock . . . if Superman could fly his wheelchair backwards around the Earth and stop time, THAT would be the precise moment I would choose.

We enter the store and WAP! The SMELL of dogs, and cats, and parakeets, and children waffles through the air. It almost knocked me flat on my ass but Mrs. P cut through it and headed straight to the puppy section. She pressed her nose up against the glass and almost immediately found the one she wanted. And I knew this wasn’t like one of her shopping-for-shoes type experiences. I’m not afraid to go shoe shopping with her because I know she’ll spend 6 hours looking and still not find one she likes. But with a puppy, she’ll spend 6 hours looking AND find 100 she wants. How is it that bims can never find the perfect shoe, but they can find the perfect puppy in like 10 seconds. Mrs. P is more discriminating in her shoes than her pets! Anyhoo, she spots this Italian Greyhound. The dog is less than a foot long. Looks kind of like a guinea pig with a canine head. Very cute dog. I admit it. But it was so small. So Mrs. P is gung-ho for this doggy. I thought it was a ree-dick-u-lus waste of bacon bits. So I got evil. I began to plant the seeds of guilt. Operation Guilt Trip was in full effect.

I was like, “She IS awfully adorable. But will you have the TIME to take care of her, I mean, with Med School and all.” I was relentless, “I’ll get her if you want, but I’ve never taken care of a puppy before, and I just want to make sure we’ll have the time and energy to devote.” And it worked! Mission Accomplished. Somehow we left that store without a puppy. But even I felt bad at my perfectly executed my Operation Guilt Trip.

In other words, it backfired. Mrs. P. whined WORSE than any puppy dog for over a week. Now she was determined to get this dog no matter what. The original dog we saw was sold, so she called every store, shelter, and Chinese restaurant in town. And finally she got one. She marched us into the store, pulling me in by my leash and demanded to see their Italian Greyhound. I was trapped. There was nothing I could do. I had to put my foot down! But it was too late. Operation Guilt was a failure. Time to drop the Bomb. “Mrs. P, I do not want this dog! The only time I want to touch an animal is when I’m dragging it off the side of the road.” I held firm. Mrs. P’s eyes swelled up with salty redness. Then SHE enacted her counter-strategy. Operation Cutesy Wootsy. She got the prospective puppy out of storage. It was like factory-direct. Still had the barcode on its belly. She makes me sit down with this little puppy and play with it. This little dog curls up in my lap and sleeps. I tried to fight the urge to pet it. FIGHT IT I thought. My lower lip was trembling. “I will NOT give in! I will not buy this cutesy wootsy adorable loveable soft little puppy. NOOOO!” Then Mrs. P nailed me between the eyes with her final blow. The proverbial silver biscuit through the heart. “I was gonna name it Sherwood.”

AAAAAAH! I couldn’t hold back any longer.  I stood up out of my chair, crying hysterically, “I ALWAYS WANTED A PUPPY! I always did! But I thought it wasn’t manly. I thought it would make me a pansy. I always wanted a loyal little buddy to play Frisbee with. I ALWAYS DID!”

As store employees radioed for mall security, the other patrons offered me a standing ovation as Mrs. P took me to her bosom whispering, “It’s okay. It’s okay. You’ve always been a pansy anyhow.”

So now we have Sherwood—and she’s a girl. She’s kind of annoying, having to pee all the time. But she’s great for excuses! Whenever there’s this effluvium of fart funk, I just say, “Dog did it!” Whenever Mrs. P yells at me for pee around the bowl or on the floor, “Dog did it!” Whenever she finds tinatorpedoes.jpg or verybigbra.jpg in my documents menu, “Dog did it!”

Plus I’ve found I no longer have to bathe. Sherwood loves to lick my elbows clean. And talk about a bim magnet. Mad hotties are talking to me everytime I walk Sherwood. Okay, they’re not interested in me, but they ARE interested in my puppy. They stuff phone numbers in her collar. So now I’m a dog owner. And Sherwood IS kinda cool. Just by her watching me, she’s learned how to dance to the Hot Boys, how to beg for money, and how to lick her privates!